


An incomplete, rejected Yuletide draft

by depresane



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, Incomplete, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Spoilers, draft, leaving Ohtori, leaving the Ohtori Academy, mentions of akio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 04:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17015916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depresane/pseuds/depresane
Summary: I'm not including this short story in the Yuletide event because I'm not satisfied with it. Also, I couldn't come up with a conclusion for it. Nonetheless, I decided to publish it nonanonymously. I wish you a peaceful and content December solstice.





	An incomplete, rejected Yuletide draft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halfeatenmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/gifts).



Grey stone of a bus stop was slowly crumbling, its sculpted roses fading, its roof shining with sunlit cracks. A pebble road led to a forest and the horizon with endless, empty fields of grass. A village stood metres away from the spot, still and quiet.  
A vehicle raised dust as it drove, leaving behind a teenager with dyed blond hair. The girl was wearing an asymmetrical black dress with a cartoon head of a cow, and carrying a huge suitcase. She didn’t realize there was one more person at the bus stop because she turned right and looked at the car she had hitchhiked.  
“I sure got lucky,” she spoke aloud. She took her phone to check the time; her model had seven rows of buttons and an external antenna. “Still, I have to wait four hours. Mmm, and Wakaba hasn’t called me back. Just when exactly is she planning to lea– ”  
“Hello.”  
One cheerful word spooked the girl. She felt as if she dropped a set of plates and was caught with broken pieces at her feet.  
She recognized the voice, “Himemiya Anthy.”  
“I must admit, taking a lift and waiting for a bus, that’s quite… I assumed your parents had a car or… knew someone who can drive.”  
The girl turned around. Anthy was leaning against the grey wall, her loose clothes in shades of green and pink, her hair curly and messy, her bindi a pre-made, adherent piece. She seemed to have no luggage with her.  
The sight confused the teenage girl, “Wasn’t she in a dress and a beret when she left the Academy? Like, has she changed in the village? Maybe in a tent? And where did her pet go?”  
Anthy waited.  
“Same old smile,” she kept thinking, “but her bindi used to be painted on. Glasses gone… How uncanny, seeing her without them… Well, seeing _anyone_ without their glasses kinda feels…”  
Anthy waited no more, “Nanami?”  
The girl tensed, “Uuum, you see, about my parents… They aren’t happy. And I don’t want to talk about it.”  
“I see.”  
“Why are you here anyway?”  
Nanami realized that she sounded offended.  
“I mean, you don’t live here, do you? You’re waiting for the same bus. Right?”  
Anthy looked at the wall perpendicular to the one she was resting on. “There is no bus.”  
Nanami threw her hands upwards, “What! Come on now, I called the company yesterday!”  
“It doesn’t matter.”  
“How?!”  
“Time has no control over the Academy. The students are tricked into believing that nothing changes while they study there. But when they leave…”  
Nanami kicked her suitcase and sat on it, glaring at the ground. “They panic and return. Of course. Why would the End of the World ever want us to leave? He had cursed that place… Lured us in… Of course. Wait.” She turned her head back to Anthy. “You! The curry, the animals, the egg; that’s all you! _Can_ you summon a bus that will take me home?!”  
Anthy pressed a finger against her chin.  
She kneeled from the suitcase towards Himemiya, “I know how I treated you! I know! You have no reason to help me whatsoever! But I need that bus!” She bowed. “Even if you tell me to walk, like, ‘There’s another bus stop, but it’s ten kilometres away from here,’ fine, I’ll walk there! ‘Cause I deserve that! Just give me _something_! I need to go home and change school! Please!”  
Anthy’s eyebrows twitched. Her voice was soft and close to a whisper, “Stand up.”  
Up she stood.  
Anthy shut her eyes.  
“Is she about to cry?”  
She didn’t. She took a breath and fixed a lock on her forehead. “Walk around the bus stop.”  
Nanami marched. No doubting, no questions; she only wondered what kind of a great spell Anthy would prepare for her.  
As she completed the lap, she saw two bicycles; there was nothing unique about the first one, but the second one had a metal basket between two rear wheels and a portable CD player attached above the front wheel; tiny loudspeakers were hanging from each handlebar. Her suitcase was secured inside the basket with plastic belts.  
Anthy mounted the casual bicycle and smiled. “I’ll show you the way to that other bus stop.”  
Nanami pressed her lips with a crook. “Huh. Sure.”  
  
They rode at a moderate speed, fast enough for the air to chill them, slow enough for the CD player so that it didn’t skip.  
Nanami yelled in tune, “Eien no!... ichibyō o mamoritai! Koborete yuku!... jikan wa suna no yō! Mayowanaide! Dakishimete hoshii! Hagure sō na!... hoshi no nai yoru!”  
Anthy spoke, “We’ll be approaching the city soon.”  
“How soon? Will I manage to sing one more song?”  
“I don’t think so. See that rail bridge? It’s right behind it.”  
“Aww,” Nanami waited for “Eien no ichibyō” to end, and switched the player off. “Thanks, by the way. How did you know I like Ms Tamura?”  
“Oh, I didn’t know. She’s just popular, so I thought…”  
“I see.” She resumed after a brief pause, “Say, Miss Anthy, my memories are a little foggy because of that cursed Academy, but you had a friend with light hair, right?”  
“You mean Utena?”  
“Huh, that’s her name? Which language does it come from? It can’t be Japanese. U-te… Uten, as in, ‘rainy weather’… Udewa, as in, ‘a bracelet’… Neither are given names, though.”  
“I wonder, too.”  
“At least with your name… Like, I can assume that your parents or ancestors had settled in Japan and changed their surname… Like Mr Yakumo did; if I remember correctly, his name was Hearn.”  
Anthy giggled, “Well, you didn’t waste your time at school. It’s quite a story because my current name was inspired by a Greek noun for a flower.”  
“Oh.”  
“I’m not Greek.”  
“Obviously,” Nanami chuckled.  
“My real name is Devanshi.”  
“Ooh. But they don’t have the same meaning, Devanshi and Anthy, do they?”  
“Devanshi is closer to who I am. Akio learned about ‘anthos’, and cut my name to resemble it.”  
Nanami hummed. “Then, now that I know, should I call you Miss Devanshi?”  
She gazed into the sky. “I guess so.”  
  
The girls parked the bicycle and tricycle next to a neat bus stop. Nanami read its schedule. She struggled to speak.  
“I… have to wait till evening.”  
“Oh my.”  
“Is there a park in this city? A theatre?”  
“There’s a restaurant nearby.”  
“Sounds great, I’m quite hungry.”  
  
The restaurant invited its customers with cosy, warm brown furniture with cushions.  
A waiter greeted the girls, “How can I help you?”  
Devanshi replied confidently, “I would like a plate of nigirizushi with an octopus topping.”  
“I am very sorry, we have run out of octopi. May I offer you another topping?”  
“Squid, then.”  
He noted down, “Very well. Would you also like green tea or other beverage?”  
“Sencha with sugar, please.”  
“Alright. And for you, Madam?”  
Nanami bent her index finger, “Aay, I… Can I have gyōza, please? As for tea… I still don’t know.”  
“We offer sencha, kukicha, and oolong. Aside from tabletop sugar we can serve tea with dango, dorayaki, yōkan, or alone.”  
“Right… Then I’ll have kukicha with dorayaki.”  
When the waiter left the table to carry the ticket, Nanami scratched her head.  
Himemiya tapped her fingertips against each other, “I thought you would order a full course meal.”  
“Aaah, maybe under different circumstances I would.”  
“Oh.”


End file.
